Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume3 Phase03 (section)

===Part 3===

Once Mamilis Coster arrived at the connecting walkway to the control tower, she found the gate that functioned like a train station’s ticket gate.

(Let’s see. I hold my sorcery gun’s front sight up to the reader…)

“Boop. Done.”

With a submachinegun that would fit in a small bag, using the muzzle like a stamp may have been simple enough, but it was a fair bit of work with a full-auto shotgun she had to carry on her back. She wondered if Henrietta was having even more trouble thanks to her axe-like bayonet.

However, the gate opened surprisingly smoothly. The military sorcery device – which looked more like a giant treasure chest than coffin and had translucent slime oozing out – didn’t budge from where it was standing guard. Mamilis must have looked like she knew what she was doing because a Public Morals Committee girl with twin braids was walking the other way but only gave a nod of greeting toward the unauthorized outsider. The girl out of uniform and carrying a full-auto shotgun did not draw her attention because she was too focused on pursuing a short girl from the Mystery Club who was attempting to enter off-limits areas in broad daylight in the name of investigating a mystery.

Mamilis recalled what Henrietta had said before they had to part ways.

“''Mysterious organizations'' like this Student Council do not always keep their promises. They might launch a surprise attack before you reach the tower’s roof, so be on your guard on your way there.”

For that reason, she was carrying the full-auto shotgun in her hands instead of on her back. But if she let herself get too nervous, the smallest thing could scare her into pulling the trigger. She earned a somewhat surprised look from a very logically-minded Fencing Club boy who was walking down the hallway while flipping through an anatomy textbook.

Fortunately, she was never hit in the back of the head and never triggered a tripwire.

She found the stairs inside the control tower and began to climb this time. She honestly would have preferred the elevator, but she had been told that wasn’t an option because she could be trapped inside.

(This is floor 70, the end of Grade C. Each tower is a different height, so am I almost to the roof now?)

Would her strength last? She was afraid her legs would be too worn out by the time she arrived for the rooftop duel.

“Even if I was sent after the weakest one,” she commented, pouting her lips.

It was more accurate to say her opponent could not make use of her greatest strengths in a one-on-one battle in an open area but was second to none when it came to assassination techniques using blind spots, but the meaning had undergone a metamorphosis within Mamilis. And she was too much of a rookie to realize it was a bad sign if she was using her personal impression of the situation to create a more optimistic view.

She decided to climb the stairs at a steady pace like she was mountain climbing. If she rushed up them, she would be in no state to fight the duel. At the open security colosseum on the way, she held her shotgun’s front sight up to the flat reader and continued her way up. She knew it wasn’t going to attack her, but the large orchid mantis staring at her with mechanical eyes was still terrifying. Its armor was made of cold mana-conducting silver, but its movements were weirdly realistic.

“I know real orchid mantis larvae mimic flowers in appearance and smell, so is this trying to lure me in too?”

Her question went unanswered.

As she continued her work in silence, the isolation and weariness turned her thoughts inward.

(But this is unusual.)

Mamilis pondered her situation as she climbed the stairs.

She patted the emergency parachute she wore on the side of her hip.

(Coach wouldn’t normally have us split up for something as uncertain as “I’m sure you can win this”. He normally says he won’t let us fight unless he’s 100% certain of our safety.)

Ayato was the kind of person to throw out his entire plan and make a run for it if unforeseen circumstances caused his scenario to fall apart. He had done precisely that during their first run in with the President.

He had the ''strength'' to dryly conclude that clinging to his plan out of trite stubbornness wouldn’t change the reality of the situation, so he would immediately rework it into something workable.

(But now he’s sending us on a one-way path to an unrecoverable situation?)

Thinking about it wasn’t going to reveal the answer to her.

Maybe this was a sign of just how desperate Ayato was. Even as an outsider, Mamilis could sense that something big still linked Ayato to his old haunt of the Academy Towers.

She wasn’t opposed to taking on some risk to support him here.

He had saved her life and she disliked how he still worked so hard to protect her.

(That settles it. I’m going to show coach how useful I can be. Then he’ll be singing my praises.)

This tower apparently only went to floor 91 with a grade of S. That meant the security colosseum on floor 90 was the final check. But reaching the top floor required a special key, unlike the standard grades from I to S. Mamilis felt a bit flustered as she pulled out the palm-sized assassin handgun and pressed its front sight against the security colosseum’s reader.

She had no real interest in the Grade S zone on floor 91. She continued past it until the stairs ended.

“I’m at the top. Is this the door?”

She found a metal door in front of her.

It likely led to the roof. Mamilis Coster’s duel opponent would be waiting out there.

Sibell Wildcat.

The Student Council’s Secretary. As a dark elf from the outside world, Mamilis had no idea what value that title held, but given how large an organization the Academy Towers was, she could easily imagine only a select few could hold positions like that.

She gulped.

She reached for the doorknob but pulled her hand back again. Whether she used the elevator or stairs, the challenger had to pass through this door. It was the best spot to lay a trap. She didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, but she still avoided touching the knob with her bare hand. She first lightly touched the lever-style knob with her shotgun’s stock which she ordinarily held against her shoulder.

She heard a click.

“?”

Her brown shoulders jumped, but nothing happened. That must have been nothing more than the door’s latch. She blushed a bit and cleared her throat before lowering the knob with the stock and using the thick sole of her boot to push the door outwards.

Mamilis arrived on the roof safely.

The powerful wind was much chillier than on the ground. Her breath left her mouth white. She held up her full-auto shotgun and peered through the sight to view the large circular space ahead. There wasn’t any kind of railing. It was only an open, flat space with nothing in it. There wasn’t a single place to hide.

“…?”

But this was odd.

Puzzled, Mamilis Coster removed her eye from the sorcery gun’s sight.

The dark elf described the impossible situation aloud.

“''There’s no one here?''”



On the roof of the security tower, Henrietta Split Destrius scratched her head after finding a similarly empty space.

But unlike Mamilis, Henrietta viewed things with a more strategic eye.

She immediately realized what the Student Council had done.

“Damn.”

If her opponent wasn’t here, he had to be somewhere else.

And if the Student Council felt no need to follow their own rules, it was best to assume the “one person per tower” rule was also invalid.

But there was nothing she could do with this new information.

She turned back toward a different tower and looked up toward the top of that much-taller structure.

“''Are they ganging up on a single target!?''”



Teleria Nereid Aquamarine’s face had gone pale.

She could not stop herself from trembling.

The pair of handguns she held were meaningless.

They had built-in suppressors, lasers, and dot sights. All the accessories covering the sorcery guns seemed to represent her own lack of confidence.

She couldn’t hit anyone from this range, but heading back to help would require descending the mana tower, using either a connecting walkway or the ground, and then climbing the gem tower.

She could see her destination, but she couldn’t reach it.

All she could do was watch.

The Student Council’s true target was…

“''Ayato''!!!”